Thread To Break The Forum Silence

i envy you @anon83620728. i would do alot for such a job…and to have an animal like blue around makes it even more amazing! :evergreen_tree::horse:

2 Likes

I know exactly where you’re coming from @kilchhofer, but, it’s not ‘exactly’ my job, yes we get paid, but it’s minimal wages and it’s only for maybe 4 or 5 weeks of the year! Compared with something similar say working on oil rigs - away from home and potentially dangerous work - the wages are actually very, very low! We do it more for the love of it than anything else :slight_smile: actually, I did do it for love, with no pay i.e. as a volunteer for some time before I finally got paid work from it!

2 Likes

i see, i did volunteer work in the mountains once and even though i loved it and had a good time with good people i thought well here’s what’s fucked up in this story…the work is necessary, everybody wants fresh and organic food from the mountains, in the stores down in the cities they charge you tons for these products but here am i, with several other volunteers, doing this work for free because without it the farmers couldn’t survive. makes me depressed to be honest…
nevertheless, i admire you doing this, for several reasons!

3 Likes

Oh yes - I agree completely - you have highlighted a very important issue there - seems to happen in a lot of work areas! Healthcare in the UK is the biggest one for me here, our nurses who do incredibly hard and challenging work get paid terrible wages!

1 Like

Here in the States we have a similar problem that seems obfuscated by politics and that is that much of our food is picked and prepared by illegal labor, our laundry in hospitals and hospice are cleaned by illegal labor, our motels and hotels are cleaned by illegal labor…if it’s a dirty thankless underpaid job it is often handled by illegal Hispanic labor that give benefit to our elderly, sick and dying, travelers on a budget, and others who would otherwise be negatively impacted by higher costs. And yet it often just these people who will not take these underpaid jobs and lament the labor who struggled to get into the United States to take these particular jobs.

2 Likes

Nice work Kel. Big fan of the versatackle m’self for logging/felling (crushed a 2k saw couple of months back for the lack thereof, a standing dead tree didn’t fall as it was wanted!..better a crushed saw than a crushed human!) but also for tensioning large tarps!

Is it rehabilatory work for the forest, or are you actually working for the products?

The draft horse is excellent to see. Is that a choice for care of the forest? The water stroage on the farm where I live was dug by my grandfather using horse teams and a scoop. He was unromantic about the process, and reckoned tractors a much easier affair! I read recently that farmers in France are returnng to horses for tilling in vineyards as they damage the soil less.

2 Likes

Both! Although because the hazel is very long ‘over stood’ the pickings are slim and not like a fully working and healthily maintained coppice. That’s the long term goal - a 7 year rotation of the hazel coups for product - that’s when it will hopefully become profitable.

And yes - because the woodland floor is just soil it is easily damaged and the tractor we used last year really churned the track up. The horse doesn’t mess it up it all.

I must admit though, the tractor was fun in it’s own way, and has it’s own story:

2 Likes

Ok, so coppicing done originally to have a productive forest?

That’s a handsome tractor!

1 Like

At the risk of detracting from all of this beautiful nature talk (Chicago winters…:expressionless:) uBurst came today:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BcfliitAGEv/

2 Likes

Yes - it was originally planted as a working coppice, but was abandoned some 50-60 years ago - like many coppices!

So good to see that these old ways are being restored - I believe our project is not the only one!

Next thing is hedge laying, for too long the approach to hedge management has been a very crude and disrespectful use of mechanised tools that really mes things up. Our government has decided to award funding to revitalise the old ways - and as a result my friend landed a three week job in January laying 450M of hedge - eek - there will be a team of us but that’s going to be a tough few weeks!

Here’s an old film showing what’s involved :smiley:

1 Like

What is this uBurst of which you speak? Literally Clouds in 8hp?

1 Like

Yep. There are AFAIK two 8hp designs being made by third parties. One is uClouds (you can see that one here), the other is uBurst (the one I own made by Michigan Synth Works, here)

Yeah, it’s a shame that those preindustrial agricultural processes were abandoned so totally (stamped out) only to be returned with the baggage of bureaucracy and funding etc. making them “not cost effective”. You know the “if you kill off the prairie dogs there will be noone to cry for rain” story?

I pulled down a mile long stretch of fence this year that was ineffective as a fence, but delightful as a work of landscape art. It was at least 70yo and wonderfully decayed. Was sad to do it.

1 Like

I love all the u and micro modules. For clouds in particular, as I still have the MI version, as much as I want the u model, I can’t justify it when both the 301 and SSP will be able to handle all that clouds does with ease.

Still dedicated 8hp module to that is great. Really wished Rings could fit in there, but I think that one just isn’t possible.

1 Like

Wow, that’s great!

And as we’re talking things agricultural, here’s my own (also unpaid!) office view earlier in the year. 7pm, so a mild 36 degrees or so. In the same month we had three days in a row over 49 degrees!

9 Likes

Yes I would say you have Clouds bases covered really well in that case! For me it was about gaining hp in my 7U and wanting an iteration of Clouds as a standalone.

I didn’t know that story no, but looked it up and now I do - thank you!

Sounds like you are having loads of fun too - it’s great to find kindred spirits here as, well, it is a modular synth forum when all said and done - I think it’s amazing that we can share these things here and perhaps (hopefully) inspire others to seek out similar experiences - it’s good to feel alive!

(Even if I do hurt all over and am covered in cuts and bruises heh)

Welcome…it’s informative (that story) in regards to knee jerk colonial dismisal of other ways of sciencing (“Damn savages!”). We spend billions, as your funding example suggests, on fixing up problems created in the past by simply valuing “expert” intellectual constructions over hard won, lived expertise regarding an environment. Of course some “that’s just the way we do things 'round here” is just bull headed stoopid, but there’s a balance to be had…

I think this above bears relation to the current discussion about UI in the V0.3.x thread, but I don’t know that I’ve the edumacation in design and UI’s and such to contribute coherently.

I would say I come to the ER-301 for fun! Drenching 1500 sheep in 40 degree heat and collecting miles of rusted old fencing wire in frigid, 20mph Southerlies more necessity than fun, but I certainly acknowledge that it’s a unique lived experience and a priveledge even if hard yakka (as we say 'round these parts)

2 Likes

I just have to say:

I think 0.3 is, for me, the phase where the ER301 really hit some hard-to-define pivotal point where the module’s potential blows through the roof.

It has to do with the improved sample functions, but also the synergy of a thousand little tweaks. Now we’re seeing units like the unbelievable tape emulation by @scttcmpbll

Thanks to the maestro himself, and also everyone on this forum – can’t wait to build new stuff, make new melodies and see what’s around the corner.

6 Likes